So my poor travel book seems to be going off in all sorts of unexpected directions. One moment I’ll be writing about a visit I made to The National Watch and Clock Museum, the next moment I’m discussing the ancient Greeks and the difference between chronos and kairos.

So in writing this travel book I’ve had people tell me that I should explain why I wanted to take this trip. I’ve been somewhat resistant to doing so. For a long time I didn’t think the why of it all really mattered but lately I’ve found myself on the proverbial fence.

I still haven’t decided. But for what it’s worth, I’ve posted one of my stabs at explaining the why of it all below.

Some years ago, I was driving along the New Jersey Turnpike when the feeling came upon me that it would be nice to get off the highway and drive the two lane roads instead.

“Why would you want to do that?” The woman who sat beside me that I was seeing at the time asked.

We’d been to a Christmas party the night before in a town about twenty minutes east of Philadelphia and we were on our way home along the New Jersey Turnpike to New York when I said these thoughts aloud. I explained that I’d never been to this particular part of New Jersey before. That Southern New Jersey was so different than its Northern counterpart and that it would be nice to get away from the sameness of The New Jersey Turnpike: to drive the two lane roads and actually see something for a change. As I told her these things I realized that I might as well be speaking Swahili for all she understood. Finally, I gave up and lapsed into a mournful silence. I was chastened and overcome with the most bewildering futility; with the certainty that this was one of those things in life about which neither one word, nor a hundred, nor even a hundred thousand would make a bit of difference. When it comes to such things words are useless, blunt things. They can neither slice nor penetrate. So I said nothing and we drove on between concrete barriers. Looking back, at that moment when I spoke those words aloud, I realize that a spark was struck, a fire kindled—even if I was the only one who could feel the heat.